When designing wire harnesses arranged in a certain vehicle, it is necessary to prepare a design drawing showing connections of electrical wires constituting the wire harnesses. Hereinafter, a procedure of designing wire harnesses will be described.
When designing wire harnesses arranged in a certain vehicle, two specifications of auxiliary device-based wiring information and an auxiliary device specification table of the vehicle are necessary. First, auxiliary device-based wiring information and an actual wiring diagram prepared based on the auxiliary device-based wiring information will be described. In the past, the auxiliary device-based wiring information and the actual wiring diagram have been designed by CAD (Computer Aided Design) (for example, see Patent Literature 1).
The auxiliary device-based wiring information is prepared for each of the systems mounted in a vehicle and individually driven, such as a head lamp system, an airbag system, an air-conditioning system, an engine control system, and an ABS system. In order to drive the system, it is necessary to connect electrical components (for example, a battery, an ECU (Electronic Control Unit), and a driving machine) constituting the system by a signal line, a power line, and a ground line. The auxiliary device-based wiring information includes circuit line connection information showing which terminals of which electrical component, the starting point and the terminating point of each of the electrical wires of these signal line, power line, and ground line are connected to, and which electrical wires the signal line, the power line, and the ground line are connected to, and auxiliary device information on an auxiliary device that connects the electrical wires of the signal line, the power line, and the ground line to the electrical component. Since the auxiliary device-based wiring information mainly aims to show a circuit diagram of a system made up of a plurality of electrical components, information on electrical wires is not included therein.
Thus, an actual wiring diagram in which information on the electrical wires is added to the auxiliary device-based wiring information is prepared. The actual wiring diagram is one in which the information on the electrical wires is added to the information on the circuit lines connecting electrical components, described in the auxiliary device-based wiring information, and which is divided into respective regions (an engine compartment, a vehicle interior wall, or a trunk; hereinafter these regions will be referred to as subdivided regions) where wire harnesses can be arranged, dividing a vehicle space into respective functions. For example, when a circuit line described in the auxiliary device-based wiring information extends over a plurality of subdivided regions to be connected to a plurality of electrical components, information on terminals or connectors connected to the terminals of the electrical component at the starting point and the terminating points of the circuit line is described in the actual wiring diagram. Moreover, information on respective electrical wires positioned in the subdivided regions (since wire harnesses are arranged in respective subdivided regions, it is necessary to connect the terminals of a plurality of electrical components by connecting the electrical wires of the respective subdivided regions) is also described in the actual wiring diagram. Furthermore, information on auxiliary devices such as a connector, a JB ((Electric) Junction Block or Junction Box), or a JC (Joint Connector) for connecting the end portions of electrical wires positioned in the respective subdivided regions (when the end portions of an electrical wire are connected by welding or butt-joining, information of this fact) is described in the actual wiring diagram. The actual wiring diagram in which the information on electrical wires is described in this way is prepared for each system mounted in the vehicle.
Subsequently, an auxiliary device specification table will be described.
In the auxiliary device specification table, the configuration (a part number of the wire harness, a combination of specifications applicable to the wire harness, identification information of applicable vehicles in which the wire harness can be arranged, and arrangeable subdivided regions of the applied vehicle) of general-purpose wire harnesses is described in a matrix form for each wire harness.
Subsequently, region-based connector/wiring information is prepared based on the actual wiring diagram and the auxiliary device specification table prepared in this way. The region-based connector/wiring information describes wire harnesses arrangeable in each subdivided region of a target vehicle while including the electrical wires described in the actual wiring diagram (that is, while enabling all systems mounted in the vehicle to be driven). When creating the region-based connector/wiring information, a wire harness arrangeable in the subdivided region is schematically specified from the auxiliary device specification table through the subsequent step. First, a specification code necessary for driving all systems in the subdivided region is specified by referring to the actual wiring diagram of all systems mounted in the vehicle. A wire harness including a combination of all specification codes is specified by referring to the specified specification codes. This step is executed with respect to all subdivided regions, whereby wire harnesses arrangeable in each subdivided region of the target vehicle are specified.
After performing a region-based connector/wiring information creating step of creating the region-based connector/wiring information, a validity determining step of determining whether the description of the auxiliary device-based wiring information is identical to the description of the region-based connector/wiring information is performed. That is, it is determined whether the starting point and the terminating point of a circuit line connecting electrical components, described in the auxiliary device-based wiring information are identical to the starting point and the terminating point of connections of electrical wires connecting electrical components, described in the region-based connector/wiring information.